Downton Abbey…Episode for February 2
For me the most interesting conflict of the evening was between the Dowager Countess and Isobel Crawley. They are on such opposite poles of values in society, the dowager being so spoiled and used to being the cherry on top of the sundae…and Isobel so conscious of her duty to make the world a better, fairer place for people like the newly hired hand of whom the dowager is so very suspicious from the beginning. I enjoyed Isobel’s triumph, but was also relieved to see that the dowager was actually made of better stuff than I had supposed in her apology and rehiring of the young man. For the first time, Isobel was speechless. Isobel is the modern woman, while the dowager is a throwback to the serfdom of times gone by. What marvelous social foes they make!
Thomas Barrow is a villain of the first degree. The tension he creates only adds to my desire that he be thwarted for his efforts to ruin other people’s lives. I want the hold he has on the new lady’s maid to be broken soon, though I doubt that will happen.
Tom Branson, the late Sybil’s husband, is a good man with good intentions for helping to take care of the estate. I’m hoping that he acquires more confidence in himself. The family has accepted him. They respect him and even like him.
Lady Mary remains in a nether world, still grieving over the loss of her husband Matthew. Now I grieve for her.
Mary’s sister, Edith, is a puzzle to me. I fear she may have placed her trust too soon in the man she has agreed to marry. Not yet sure where that’s going. At any rate, I love the series and feel drawn into the plot twists and conflicts. For example, I loved the way Lady Grantham handled the restaurant scene when the head waiter was snubbing Bates and his wife Anna. Great stuff! JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
View all posts by John →
Tom Branson, the late Sybil’s husband, is a good man with good intentions for helping to take care of the estate. I’m hoping that he acquires more confidence in himself. The family has accepted him. They respect him and even like him.
Lady Mary remains in a nether world, still grieving over the loss of her husband Matthew. Now I grieve for her.
Mary’s sister, Edith, is a puzzle to me. I fear she may have placed her trust too soon in the man she has agreed to marry. Not yet sure where that’s going. At any rate, I love the series and feel drawn into the plot twists and conflicts. For example, I loved the way Lady Grantham handled the restaurant scene when the head waiter was snubbing Bates and his wife Anna. Great stuff! JB